Magic: The Gathering (Spoiler-free)

Yeah, I feel like if you want to play resource denial strategies, Commander isn't the format for you.

Also, I don't think the ban list was ever supposed to be a be-all, end-all list of cards you can't even think about playing in Commander. It's more supposed to be a list of cards that the creators of the format advise against using, but you can talk to your group and get their thoughts about it. This is even spelled out on the official website:

Communication is key. Taking out your frustrations with the RC on your group by playing more stax isn't going to accomplish anything, it's just going to make people stop inviting you to game night.

I feel that saying people who like playing strategies like this is effectively gatekeeping "True Commander Players" to people who play extremely limited strategies and don't do anything that might be perceived by anybody as "limiting".

Stax is a part of the game, and dictating that people who play it should not even be playing EDH at all is...well, its pretty classic gatekeeping.

That's the thing, though: we're not trying to stop you playing Commander. We're encouraging you to play Commander in a way that respects the purpose of the format and the time and enjoyment of your fellow players.

Now, if the only way you can possibly enjoy the game is if nobody else is enjoying the game, then yes, you should not play Commander - not because you're being gatekept, but because the people who are playing against you deserve to have fun.

That still leaves the point there that you're basically saying there's one way to enjoy playing Commander - wherein nobody plays a strategy that applies limiting factors like stax.

Do you want to limit Commander gameplay to simple infinite combos, combat damage and limited interaction?

It honestly seems like there's a bias here in favor of battlecruiser magic.

The format's designers do. Here are some quotes from that page:

Regardless of our feelings on stax, the format wasn't designed for it and a lot of people hate playing against it. If your group is okay with it, great! But many people aren't (in fact, the website even says most people aren't), and protesting Hullbreacher's ban by playing more stax is only going to punish the people in your group who dislike it. If you want to keep playing Hullbreacher, you could always ask the people you play with, as the website encourages.

...Sorry to interrupt but, as a newb, I'm curious how easy recursion is in this game i.e. bringing back used cards?

Recovering your cards is very easy.

Many of my favorite commander decks in fact like Muldrotha, Meren and even Hofri to an extent all involve getting back your cards.

Though in more limited environments, it can become a lot trickier. There have been a lot of tools for recovering things over the years.

I want to address something that was said earlier:

Just because it's "a part of the game" doesn't mean it needs to be a part of every format. Every format removes things that are "part of the game" but undermine the purpose and the spirit of the format.

As an example, Deceiver Twin is part of the game. Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin are both cards that exist, nothing about them is mechanically unworkable, there are people who run Deceiver Twin in the eternal formats.

But you can't run it in Standard.

This is not Standard "gatekeeping" people who want to run Splinter Twin decks. It is that allowing people to run Splinter Twin decks goes against the purpose of Standard, which is to compete using cards from a specific selection of sets.

You can't show up to Draft or Sealed with a preconstructed deck you brought from home. This is not "gatekeeping" people who like to play constructed formats or a statement that constructed decks are not "part of the game"; the purpose and spirit of Draft is to build a deck using a limited and somewhat unpredictable selection of cards, and allowing people to just not do that and instead turn up with their Standard deck would undermine that.

The purpose and spirit of Commander is to provide a fun, casual experience. I hope that I don't need to explain why this purpose is incompatible with deck archetypes like Stax.

I'm not arguing that nobody should ever run limiting factors. I'm not going to demand that Ghostly Prison be banned, for example. I run counterspells in some decks. But limiting factors should be limited - not by a hard and fast rule, but by an understanding that the other players are also there to have fun, and it's not within the spirit of the format to devote all your time to preventing them from doing so.

And if the only Magic experience you enjoy is playing Stax? Then yes, I think Commander is not for you. Not because you're being "gatekept". But because the purpose and spirit of the format are incompatible with what you want from the game. Trying to force a square peg into a round hole is never going to end well, and maybe a square hole like Legacy or Vintage would be more likely to provide you with the play experience you're after.

I don't personally care for that exact level of stax, and how he builds his deck so competitively, but Jesper Ejsing, one of the most talented Magic card artists, plays a lot of very restrictive, powerful decks in Commander. One of his decks is a strong Marath deck, another was Thrasios and Tymna Hatebears, and another was a Tuvasa Enchantress deck with a lot of staxy enchantments and combos therein.

So are you saying that people like Jesper then are "doing it wrong"? Even when other people like the Generic Goblin Gang over at MTG Muddstah and Game Knights, specifically invite Jesper to play when he's able to?

And no, I don't just play stax all the time.

My other decks include Ramos Mutate and Ghired.

Edited by NickTheSwing on Jul 16th 2021 at 10:30:23 AM

My argument, ultimately, is that excessive levels of control are toxic in formats like Commander that are designed for casual fun. The most enjoyable elements of the Commander game - the political considerations, the favour-trading, the interplay between elements on the field, the wacky combos and interactions - are all negated by decks that exist solely to ensure that none of them matter.

(This is particularly obvious in the case of the strategies enabled by Hullbreacher, a card which could have been designed from the ground up to make games boring: even assuming that it doesn't combo in the first few turns, thus making the game so short it was barely worth shuffling, the tactical situation on the board becomes much less interesting when most of the players are not permitted to meaningfully interact with it.)

More than that, this particular kind of toxicity is hard to handle with a simple banlist, because many of the elements are valuable gameplay elements in isolation. There is no inherent problem with most limitation cards, which are fine individually; they only become problematic in aggregate, which is hard to solve with a binary Banned/Not-Banned list, especially considering that Commander is already a format where everything is restricted to one copy.

I don't particularly care about what one card artist does in his downtime and I have no knowledge of the group he's doing it with. Ergo, I don't see why your example should particularly move me away from that stance.

Edited by CountDorku on Jul 17th 2021 at 9:07:38 PM

I try to keep my decks midpowered just on principle.

Currently working on Ranar Foretell/Suspend and Im looking for card reccs.

Glorious Protector is great for Ranar, alongside the cards that are in his precon: Cosmic Intervention, Ethereal Valkyrie, and Spectral Deluge.

Cant think of a whole lot of particularly good suspend spells that synergise with ghost dad though, but Inspiring Refrain is probably good enough in a mid-power pod?

For Commander? Well...since his ability also triggers on exiling permanents from the battlefield, my thought would be to go for repeatable flicker sources like Conjurer's Closet or Teleportation Circle. Flickering something like Angel of the Ruins with an ETB exile effect will get you up to three spirits, depending on how many artifacts/enchantments you exile.

(Also, you know, your opponents will have fewer artifacts and/or enchantments.)

Edited by CountDorku on Aug 3rd 2021 at 6:00:50 PM

Closet or Circle with Angel of the Ruins nets two Spirits regardless, as Ranar checks for 'one or more' exiles. Still solid though; I'm using both Closet and Circle in my Ranar deck.

Now that they've fixed (re-fixed?) him, I also run Shining Shoal in the deck (I'd run Disrupting Shoal as well, if I had it). Isochron Scepter is basically cash money (one Spirit when you imprint, and one more each time you use it, assuming you imprint a flicker or removal spell), as is Elite Arcanist even though he costs way more mana. I haven't got my hands on any yet because of their monetary cost, but the MH 2 Evoke Incarnations are solid includes as well. None of these are Foretell or Suspend though, which I guess is what was asked...

Thank you all for the card reccs!

Reading about this Emrakul thing is interesting, is it in any books someone could read?

...Ummm...this is a good question, I remember something about the Eldrazi getting released but not if it’s in a previous novel or just backstory elaborated in the cards like usual.

Also, my own question: what doesn’t die to Removal?

The stories featuring Emrakul ought to be online - her most recent appearance was in the Shadows Over Innistrad block, so starting here and then continuing into Eldritch Moon.

The stories vary widely in quality, but there is some interesting stuff there.

As for what doesn't die to removal: Depends how you define it.

If the emphasis is on die, then noncreature permanents don't "die" to removal. They're destroyed, but they don't die. This is a rather technical and nitpicky answer, though.

If the emphasis is on removal, though: mostly stuff in the command zone - emblems, conspiracies and the like (unless there's a niche Un-card I'm forgetting). On the battlefield, there's nothing that's totally invincible: indestructible doesn't protect against exile, protection doesn't prevent mass destroy effects and so on. Instants and sorceries that can't be countered can still be exiled by some cards, either directly or by ending the turn. But there's nothing that removes emblems or conspiracies.

When people say "removal", they usually mean single-target things like Doom Blade. So anything with hexproof/shroud or protection from black and/or white (for creatures, at least) doesn't die to removal.

Do they, though? Like, it's not uncommon to refer to those spells as "single-target removal" and board wipes as "mass removal".

Also, you'd need protection from red (for burn spells) and green (for fight and "deals damage equal to its power") as well.

September 8, 2021 Banned and Restricted Announcement

• Pauper
  • Chatterstorm is banned.
  • Sojourner's Companion is banned.

They've banned the Axolotl Buddy!

This means war!

October 13, 2021 Banned and Restricted Announcement, effective Oct. 14th.

• Standard:
  • No changes. They are considering Alrund's Epiphany and Esika's Chariot, but will wait to see what the next set brings before deciding.
• Historic:
  • Tibalt's Trickery is banned.
  • Memory Lapse is suspended.
  • Brainstorm is banned (it was suspended).
  • Five digital-only cards are being rebalanced.

Also, as that last line says, they are now willing to give functional errata to digital-only cards. See the article for details.